


descanso vi: and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air

by marythefan (marylex)



Series: descansos [4]
Category: Stargate: Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-25
Updated: 2007-04-25
Packaged: 2017-10-06 21:03:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marylex/pseuds/marythefan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tracey Collins is in Atlantis two weeks before he realizes its corridors are haunted, its ghosts intangible but ever-present.<br/>Markham and Smitty.<br/>For "The Brotherhood."</p>
            </blockquote>





	descanso vi: and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air

Tracey Collins is in Atlantis two weeks before he realizes its corridors are haunted, its ghosts intangible but ever-present.

He gets lost one day, trying to find the mechanical engineering lab Dr. Zelenka's been using as a substation in a section of the city being brought back online, and he turns a corner to find two simple crosses painted on the wall in what looks like whitewash, the names "MARKHAM" and "SMITH" printed blocky in black marker on their arms. Someone's scrawled "Semper Fi" at chest height to one side of them, an echo of the rough inscription on the Wall he's seen near the ready room. To the other side, the lines of "High Flight" scroll out in chalk, spiky handwriting beginning at eye level. Whoever wrote it must have been kneeling on the floor by the time they finished the last lines. Maybe it was the same person who lit the burned-out candle at the base of the wall, the person who left a handful of flowers gone papery, scarlet petals dimmed by time and dust. There's a boonie hat laid to one side and an empty bottle - unlabeled now, but from its shape, Tracey can guess it once held some of the whiskey everyone knows has been smuggled to Atlantis as far back as the first wave of the expedition.

He wonders what Smith and Markham - Marines? Air Force? - were doing in such an isolated part of the city when they met their deaths, wandering through halls still dark and silent, and then he glances up into the shadows of the high ceiling, the words of the poem running through his mind, and he thinks maybe they weren't inside the corridor at all, but somewhere high above it.

His fingers are drawn to the lettering on the wall, but he stops, hand hovering, before he smudges the lines. Inside these corridors, undisturbed by anything but the soft susurration of the ventilation system, the flaky chalk markings could remain for years if they stay untouched.

They could outlast him.

The vent system cycles on as he stands there, so quiet it's a mere vibration, and a stray breath of air brushes the back of his neck, curls around his nape with tickling fingers, raising the hair there. He drops his hand and backs away, not turning his back until he reaches the corner that brought him to that hallway.


End file.
